let go your reason
by SkywardShadow
Summary: Itachi, Shisui, guilt and penance. :AU, Halloween oneshot:


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any characters therein.

**A/N: Happy Halloween, y'all.**

**EDIT: Holy unicorn, guys, ffnet removed all my quotation marks! What the...well, I just fixed it. Sorry about that.**

_let go your reason_

.

Their time together consists of conversations that go on as if nothing has changed, until Shisui inevitably says something to remind Itachi that everything has. (As if he could forget.)

"Cliff-diving." The older boy brings the subject up casually. "It's always looked like fun."

Itachi responds in the same way he responds to all of Shisui's more ridiculous notions—that is, he gracefully shoots the idea down. "I'm not sure how even you could interpret such a suicidal venture as something that looks like 'fun'."

He realizes his slip a half-second too late as Shisui's grin—slightly _off_, as it has been for months—makes an appearance.

"Touched as I am by your concern," he drawls, "I'd be fine. And you know it."

Itachi does, and so he shuts up.

.

His response when asked where he's going is the same every time, with only slight changes on any given day. Some kind of errand is usually the excuse. It's a pretty thin cover, but if Itachi's mother notices that he never comes home with a bag of groceries or a new stack of library books (and he has no doubt that she does), she says nothing.

It wouldn't matter if he had no excuse, poorly given or otherwise; he would find a way to make it work. Because he has always been gifted at making things work, particularly when something is important to him.

(And this is _Shisui_, with his own gift of knocking away any other occupants of Itachi's priority list to climb straight to the top. He's always been irritatingly proficient at that.)

A cliff overlooking the ocean is always the meeting place, no exceptions. The drop is just high enough to cause instant death six times out of ten and slow death the other four.

This is the place where they talk, where Itachi learns new things about his friend with every passing afternoon.

Today, the revelation is that Shisui is afraid of heights.

Itachi's eyebrows arch at the almost apologetic confession. "Heights?" he repeats. "You?"

One of Shisui's chief characteristics has always been his seeming lack of fear. Never, not once, has Itachi or anyone else (to his knowledge) seen the elder Uchiha in any state of real vulnerability, so to discover that he possesses such a _cliché_ fear is difficult to comprehend.

"I'll take your shock as a compliment," Shisui remarks dryly. "Yeah, I've never done well with heights. They've always made me feel uneasy. Deep water gives me the creeps too; dunno why. Maybe-" _That damn grin again-_ "Maybe I was born psychic."

Itachi's hands tighten into fists, fingernails biting into the flesh of his palm. He doesn't look at his friend. "Then why would you want to cliff-dive? Doesn't that violate every instinct you have?"

"Of course," is the breezy reply. "That's the point of it. Face your fears. Do or die. Sink or swim. Everyone comes up on a situation like that sometime in their lives. Why not face it sooner instead of later? Don't think I'll die if I try it now, do you?"

At which point Itachi stands, stiffly, and takes his leave without a backward glance. A lilting laugh follows after him, sending shivers up his spine.

**.**

He wonders, sometimes, why he keeps coming back. Why, despite anything Shisui ever says, he always returns to that spot.

Maybe it's because he knows that Shisui will always be there.

His first words are an apology. "I should not have left like that. It was rude of me."

Shisui merely shrugs, eyes fixed on the crashing waves below. They stopped looking blue long ago, with the coming of fall; now they are gray, save for the white of sea foam. A gray to match the sky. Itachi's mother is partial to autumn because of the vibrant colors, but he feels that this paints a very desolate picture indeed.

His friend's voice, when it comes, seems distant and faint. "I can't hang around here much longer. I'm thinking I'll probably go back around Halloween or so; can't really tell at this point." After that Shisui trails off.

Itachi's stomach clenches. "Will you come back again?" he has to ask.

Shisui doesn't respond, only confirming what he already knew.

They stand together in silence. The cold numbs Itachi's fingers and the tips of his ears; eventually he realizes the consequences if he continues to stay outside in this weather and goes home, trying not to think about anything on the way.

.

The dreams won't stop plaguing him.

He'd tried getting rid of them before by borrowing some of his father's sleeping pills, enough to put him into a deep enough sleep that dreams couldn't penetrate it. His mother noticed eventually, however, and locked them away for unsaid fear of a suicide attempt.

Never mind that if Itachi were one to commit suicide, he would do it in such a way that it _ensured_ death. Nothing so slow and easily stopped as a handful of pills every other night.

In any case, he has not yet stooped so low as to pick the locks on his parent's bathroom cupboard. His new solution is simply to not sleep at all, and in general it works wonders.

But Itachi is not a robot, despite many half-joking accusations to the contrary, and he cannot go without sleep indefinitely. And when he does give in, the dreams are on him immediately, like a pack of wild animals that have lain in wait for their prey to let its guard down.

They are nothing special, these dreams. There are no ghosts or skeletons in them, no zombies dripping flesh, no otherworldly creatures hungering for his blood or for his soul. There is only Shisui, and in some ways he is worse than all these things combined.

He whispers in Itachi's ear, things that the latter hardly ever remembers by the time he wakes up, but that send chills up and down his body while he sleeps. He reminisces about their shared childhood. It's all so innocuous, right up until the ending, where Shisui dies (takes a running dive off a cliff reminiscent of the one they still visit together) and the sky goes black. It happens that way every single time, leaving Itachi alone to wander an infinite and dark and cold space until he wakes up, sweating and trembling.

They are realistic and disturbing. And somehow, when Itachi sees Shisui in the waking world the following day, it never gives him any comfort.

.

"What do you want from me, Shisui?"

The older boy doesn't respond. Irritated, especially so thanks to his self-imposed insomnia, Itachi tries again with less patience.

"There's something wrong with you. You will not tell me what, but still you continue to wait for me here and-"

"Why should I tell you?"

Itachi blinks. Frowns. "What?"

"Why should have I tell you what's wrong with me?" Shisui asks, dark gray eyes boring coolly into Itachi's own. "You already know."

He is the one to cut the conversation short this time, leaving Itachi in the cold and the dark. Itachi, for his part, avoids weighing the implications of Shisui's words by wondering how much more of his dreams can bleed into reality before he snaps completely.

.

_"Why should I say anything to you?"_

_Shisui's lips are at his ear and they are cold, everything is so cold._

_"Why should I say anything at all? You know what happened to me, Itachi."_

_Itachi shoves him away and Shisui laughs, a high, raspy laugh that doesn't sound anything like him. He bolts, but his cousin's words still follow him like a determined wolf pack._

_**"You already know."**_

Itachi wakes up, shaking violently.

He remembers.

.

They sit in silence the next evening, both waiting for the other to begin.

"I remember now," Itachi finally says, eyes scanning the horizon line, the gulls—anything except his cousin.

"Do you?" Shisui asks noncommittally.

Itachi bites his lip.

"You died," he says flatly.

Shisui doesn't even blink.

"It was a suicide," Itachi continues, speaking more quickly. As if getting the words out faster will make this easier. Like ripping off a band aid. "You came here after school. I came to meet you, like I always did. I got there just in time to see you dive off the edge."

He stops there, eyes burning and suspiciously wet. If Shisui notices, he doesn't say anything.

"You blamed yourself, didn't you?" he murmurs. "For not seeing it coming. For not getting there faster. For everything."

Itachi, still trying to cling to his last vestiges of self-control, hesitates before saying anything else.

"I still don't understand," he states quietly, what you want from me. "You are you are beyond any help I can give."

"It's not help I want," Shisui says, sounding surprised. "I'm dead, Itachi. And I've stuck around too long already; I can _feel_ the other side sucking me in. Like a cosmic vacuum cleaner."

Itachi chokes out a laugh at the simile. It sounds hollow, even to his ears. "Then what-"

"There's a lot I never got around to saying when I was alive," Shisui interrupts, an odd look on his face. "Things I probably should've mentioned before I went out like that. Not that it really matters now. I guess I just-" He breaks off and suddenly seems intent on locating a spot on his shoes. It seems to Itachi that they spend much of their time now not looking at one another and stewing in uncomfortable silences.

"Go on," he prompts.

"I'm probably going to be gone in a few more days," Shisui blurts. "And I don't want to go—wherever it is—alone."

There is a brittle, drawn-out moment during which Itachi tries to process what has just been said and implied.

"Are you asking-"

"I'm asking you to come with me," Shisui confirms. Bluntly, so that there can be no mistake.

.

The dreams get worse after that.

The Shisui of his subconscious is, for whatever reason, nothing like the Shisui of reality (if it can really be called such anymore). Where his friend in life was a warm and upbeat person, and his friend in death still retains some of those qualities as well, his personality in the dreams is markedly different.

_"You need to give me an answer."_

_Itachi doesn't look at him. "I am not in the habit of indulging my delusions."_

_"Tsk tsk, 'tachi. Just because this is all in your head doesn't mean I don't have any power. You think things have been bad the last few months? I can make them a hundred, thousand times worse. I can drive you __**completely**__ insane, as opposed to the half you are now."_

_Clenching his hands to hide their shaking, Itachi bites out the words. "You are not real."_

_Shisui looks pointedly at the younger boy's fists. "But I can still scare the shit out of you, hmm?" He smirks. "Besides, we both know you couldn't get rid of me if you tried. You say you want me gone, but if that were really true I'd've been kaput a long time ago. Both here and in the real world._

_"Truth is, he continues, putting a hand on his cousin's shoulder in a mockery of comfort, "you __**don't**__ want me gone. You still blame yourself for losing me and now you can't bring yourself to let go. Very tragic."_

_"Leave me alone," Itachi says quietly. All it prompts is another high, horrible laugh._

_"I don't think so. Not until you make the choice that'll help us both."_

_"And what would that be?"_

_Shisui grabs his chin, forcing their eyes to meet._

_"You need," he murmurs, "to come with me."_

_Itachi tries to shake his head. "My brother," he mutters. "My parents-"_

_"They'll live. Can __**you**__ live with yourself, though, after all of this?" The grin grows wider. "Can you live with me tormenting you every night until the day you die?"_

_A shudder runs through him like an electric current. Looking satisfied, Shisui lets go of him._

_"You're the genius, Itachi. You tell me what the smart move is."_

.

He wakes up with cold lips and calm eyes.

He knows what the smart move is, and also what the easy one is, and he has made his choice.

.

It's three AM but Shisui is still there. Vaguely Itachi wonders if he has anyplace else to go, or if the memories associated with this cliff are the only things keeping him anchored to this world.

As he comes closer he realizes there are beads of sweat on Shisui's forehead.

"It's almost time," Shisui mutters in response to his questioning look. "I can't hang on here much longer." He looks Itachi's way with something like hope. "Did you make up your mind, then?"

"I did."

"And?"

Itachi sighs.

"I am not going with you, Shisui."

"Oh." He's trying to mask his disappointment, but Itachi senses it all the same.

"I will not do that to my family," he says firmly. "I will not ruin their lives so that I do not have to suffer mine."

Shisui hesitates. "But I thought-"

"There is still a part of me that feels guilty about your death," Itachi cuts in. "I feel that there was more I should have been able to do to help you. So I will let you go..." His mind flashes to another Shisui, cold and unforgiving. "...and deal with the consequences."

It's penance, and Shisui knows it, if the strangled noise of frustration he makes is any indication.

"I knew you would do something like this," he snaps. "You and your damn martyr complex. Why'd you think I asked you to come with? I was hoping you'd take the easy way out for once!"

"Like you did?" Itachi asks quietly, and Shisui shuts up.

"Cripes," he mutters after a time. "Now I'm the one feeling guilty about all this."

"Don't," Itachi says. "I think he had a point. Maybe-" He swallows. "Maybe I am just not ready to let you go completely."

A twisted dream for a warm reality. It's not the best trade, but it's something.

Shisui opens his mouth, possibly to ask who made that point in the first place, but aborts the effort with a groan. "Shit."

Their eyes meet and suddenly Itachi realizes that heights are not the only thing Shisui fears.

"Shit," Shisui repeats, sounding nothing short of terrified. "I can't stop it anymore. We're-" He chokes. "We're going to heaven, Clarence."

Typical Shisui. Making jokes even now. "_You_ are," Itachi points out. "I have no doubt."

"Ah jeez." Shisui swipes a hand over his eyes. "This is all so fucked up. I really did have things I wanted to tell you before-"

His voice trails off as Itachi's hand—somehow, breaking all laws of physics—closes around his own.

"Tell me when I meet you there," Itachi suggests with something like a smile. "Only you will have to wait awhile."

Shisui gives a wet laugh. "Yeah. I definitely will."

Then he is gone, and Itachi's hand is gripping nothing but air.

.

He keeps living.

He stops going on unexplained errands all the time and instead goes on actual errands, bringing home a bag of groceries or a pile of library books and watching his mother's face soften with relief. He applies to three different colleges, all close to home. He teaches his brother how to throw darts and hit the bulls-eye every time, instead of someone's wall.

He stops trying not to sleep.

.

_"Back again, 'tachi?"_

_He says nothing in response._

_Shisui grins, but there is a tinge of anger to it. "Never say I didn't warn you. You want punishment? You want some kind of fucked-up penance? Fine. I'll see what I can do."_

_Itachi closes his eyes to the high strains of someone else's laughter, and he smiles._

.

_end_


End file.
